The exchange owns equity in Zanmai Labs, the company behind the Indian exchange WazirX, according to the founder of Binance, Changpeng Zhao.
The revelation came after the India s Enforcement Directorate decided to freeze an account belonging to WazirX over allegations of money laundering.
In the Aug. 5 Twitter thread, Zhao said that Binance did not complete the acquisition of WazirX as claimed by a blog post published on November 21, 2019. CZ said something.
He said that Binance only provides wallet services to WazirX and an integration that uses off-chain transactions to save network fees. CZ stated that
Zhao said that the recent allegations about the operations of WazirX are concerning and do not align with the values of Binance as it collaborates with law enforcement worldwide.
CZ stated that WazirX was uncooperative with Binance. He said that Binance had requested the transfer of the WazirX system source code as recently as February but was rejected.
Zhao advised WazirX users to transfer their funds to his exchange, because he could disable WazirX wallets on a tech level, but he said we can't hurt the users.
As of press time, the official website of Binance showed the announcement of its WazirX acquisition.
The founder of WazirX, Nischal Shetty, has insisted that Binance has bought the exchange.
Shetty said that Zanmai Labs is owned by him and other co-founders.
According to him:
He said that Zanmai and WazirX are two different entities, and Binance owns the WazirX domain name, has access to all the assets on the exchange, and gets all the profits.
Binance offered a wide range of services for the Indian-based exchange, according to the user agreement of WazirX.
Shetty said that all digital currency and Indian rupees on WazirX are safe, and the exchange complies with KYC and AML standards.
The conflicting assertions have sparked a debate within the Indian community as many wonders why Zhao denies WazirX ownership.
A user agreement last reviewed on July 1, 2022 was last reviewed by CryptoWhale, which has 93 legal documents confirming Binance's ownership of WazirX.